Resources

Some carbon removal approaches require meaningful amounts of energy. This raises questions about whether the approach removes carbon on net, or whether it takes away clean energy from decarbonization efforts more broadly. To address these concerns, we’ve put together a set of principles to help suppliers work through these questions and ultimately choose the best possible sources of energy for their operation.

Early buyers of abiotic marine carbon removal can play an important role in setting a high bar for what safe and responsible deployment, and rigorous measurement look like. Frontier developed a set of principles prioritizing projects that advance scientific understanding, support ecosystem safety, and engage with local communities from day one.

In partnership with Ramboll, an environmental, safety and health sciences firm, Frontier developed a rubric reviewers could use to assess whether a proposed project (1) is set up for safe deployment and (2) has a best-in-class approach to monitor and mitigate any potential ecosystem and health and safety risks. We include these details in all signed marine carbon removal contracts, along with a community benefits plan (see CarbonRun’s community benefits plan as an example).

To evaluate the measurement protocol of prospective candidates, Frontier worked with scientists at the nonprofit [C]Worthy to propose a set of requirements that would give us confidence that a marine carbon removal project is responsibly, conservatively, and rigorously demonstrating removal from deployments.

Frontier is publishing the offtake agreement template that we’ve iterated on over the course of contracting more than $300M in carbon removal purchases. Our hope is this template may help other buyers and suppliers—of either carbon removal or other early climate technologies—spend less time contracting and more time building.

Buyers can play an important role in promoting responsible scaling of BiCRS by ensuring that the biomass used to capture CO₂ from the atmosphere is sourced responsibly. To that end, we’re sharing the principles we use to make purchasing decisions as well as assess compliance throughout the duration of the contract.

In partnership with Ramboll—an environmental, safety and health sciences firm—Frontier developed a rubric reviewers could use to assess whether a proposed project (1) is set up for safe deployment and (2) has a best-in-class approach to monitor and mitigate any potential ecosystem and health and safety risks. We include any requirements not already covered by existing regulatory regimes in a protocol in all signed BiCRS contracts.

Early buyers of enhanced weathering can play an important role in setting a high bar for what safe and responsible deployment, and rigorous measurement look like. Frontier worked with Microsoft, the Yale Center for Natural Carbon Capture and others to develop a set of principles to guide enhanced weathering purchasing decisions.

In partnership with Ramboll, an environmental, safety and health sciences firm, Frontier developed a rubric reviewers could use to assess whether a proposed project (1) is set up for safe deployment and (2) has a best-in-class approach to monitor and mitigate any potential ecosystem and health and safety risks. We include these details in a protocol in all signed enhanced weathering contracts, along with our community benefits plan template.

To evaluate the measurement protocol of prospective candidates, Frontier worked with scientists from Yale and Georgia Institute of Technology to develop a measurement rubric that outlines what measurement, modeling and sampling procedures would give us high confidence that an enhanced weathering project is responsibly, conservatively, and rigorously crediting tons for their deployment.

This template is intended to provide helpful information to assist applicants in developing a community benefits plan for Frontier offtakes.

Carbon removal technologies face a variety of critical knowledge gaps. We built a dynamic database of research and innovation gaps across CDR technologies to highlight critical areas and enable cross-disciplinary experts to plug in and fill those gaps.